Bangert: Just the first shot across Glenda Ritz's bow?

Feb. 25, 2013

Glenda Ritz

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Correction: State Rep. Randy Truitt, R-West Lafayette, voted no in 2011 on the final reading of Senate Bill 575, which covered collective bargaining for Indiana teachers. An earlier version of this story misstated his vote. The following version includes the corrected information.

“The goal is to make sure we send a message.”

That, via state Rep. Robert Behning, was the upshot of an attempted Statehouse coup that had been brewing since Nov. 6.

You probably read about it last week: Behning — taking no chances with the crown jewel of the education reforms carefully rammed through the General Assembly two years ago — helped insert a bit of sabotage into House Bill 1342. The Indianapolis Republican’s plan would have moved control of Indiana’s school voucher program from the Department of Education to the Office of Management and Budget.

Viewed from 65 miles away, through the lens of spotty Statehouse webcams and frantic social media posts, the only things left to the imagination were the honed tines of pitchforks, the aroma of tar bubbling and feathers being plucked from the nearest hen house as the bill prepared to take care of Glenda Ritz once and for all.

How dare Ritz, a Democrat and voucher skeptic, beat Tony Bennett, the willing icon of all things reform during his four years as state superintendent of public instruction. And how dare Ritz take nearly two months to get settled into the job.

Yeah ... how dare she.

So what did it look like from the inside?

Here’s the CliffsNotes version from state Rep. Randy Truitt, a West Lafayette Republican.

“I think you can interpret it in whatever way you want: Shot across the bow or whatever,” Truitt said. “Because we do that on a somewhat regular basis. I mean, especially when we have administrative rule making, we ask our agencies to do certain things. If all of a sudden the intended purpose is being violated or is being pushed or stretched a little bit too far, something might be done to tell them, ‘Hey, we’re watching.’

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“But personally, I don’t know how you can really take a shot across the bow 60 days into somebody’s tenure. It’s just like someone put it in (the J&C) Rapid Response the other day: Would you have done it if Dr. Bennett was still the superintendent?”

House Speaker Brian Bosma likely heard some variation of that same message: The election was in November, pal. Don’t screw with the results in February with games in Indianapolis.

By the end of the week, Bosma had spiked HB 1432, with assurances from Ritz that she has no intention of submarining the voucher program.

How many more shots across that bow can Hoosiers expect? Truitt said he hopes there will be few. “But,” he said, “down here, you never know.”

Truitt provides a nice prism for a school reform revolution that doesn’t seem to be taking a complete break at the Statehouse.

During his previous two-year term, the West Lafayette Republican was a study in gray in what generally was a black-and-white, love it/hate it canvas.

Over two years, Truitt voted for private school vouchers. He declined to vote for limiting the collective bargaining power in teachers contracts. But he voted for A-to-F grades for individual schools. He voted for tying pay to a new system of teacher evaluations. He voted for all of that in an agenda pushed by former Gov. Mitch Daniels and his Republican colleagues in the General Assembly.

But also over two years, Truitt publicly scrapped with the Department of Education — his own shot across the bow. Truitt called out what he considered to be a disconnect between the laws that came out of the General Assembly and how they were being put into place. A 10-page letter sent to the state’s Legislative Oversight Committee, outlining grievances of teachers, principals and superintendents, made a bit of a splash statewide.

So by the time he ran for his third term, Truitt won the endorsement of the Indiana State Teachers Association — a group that spent most of its campaign effort trying to bring down Bennett for all the things Truitt voted to do. What made the endorsement particularly stunning: He ran against a Democrat with nearly three decades of services with the ISTA. Go figure.

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Truitt finds himself walking that line — and on the spot back home if education bill broadsides go through.

“I think there’s a large number of individuals on both sides of the aisle — including many in the Senate — who want to take a breath, that want to slow down,” Truitt said. “Don’t get me wrong, there are people in our caucus who want to do more education-related (things) on reform. But they want to wait to see what’s working and what’s not. And I just embrace that.”

The Statehouse hasn’t left education reform alone this year. A bill advanced in the Indiana House that would expand the voucher program to new students, including children of veterans and those in special education. The A-to-F grading for schools is under fire, with a Senate panel pushing to rework it. A bill targets teacher unions’ ability to take dues directly out of paychecks. And budget battles remain over just how much renewed spending is enough in the state’s next two-year spending plan. There are more.

But in many Hoosiers’ eyes, how well a Republican supermajority in the House and Senate works with Ritz will be a new marker in the education reform movement. That’s especially true after the messages sent by certain lawmakers last week.

“I think it’s important for you to know that I wouldn’t classify anything that took place in that education committee as being the message from our caucus or from the speaker,” Truitt said. “I think the speaker just cemented that: We’re not going to play those games.”

There are two more months left in the session to see whether Truitt’s prediction holds.